I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. % 



Chap. TSll^^ 
she/r H-fJl^ 



■ H 



8 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. $!' 



^0 



THE DIVINE MALIGNITY 



AS OPPOSED TO 



The Divine Paternity 



^ BY ,/ 

S.'SIILLER HAGE:\UN 

PKIh'CETOf',' N. J. 



NEW YORK 
TROWS PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO. 

301-213 East Twelfth Stkeet 
1880 



COPTKIGHT, 18S5. BY 
S. MILLER HAGEMAN 

[All ri'jMn reserml] 






ScDlcatcCi 

TO 

CALVES' BURNING SERVETUS 

EXASPEKATED BY 

AUGUSTINE, TURTULLIAN, EDWARDS, 

THE SUPERIORS OF 

THE DOCTRINE OF THE DIVINE MALIGNITY, 

OR, 

VINDICATORY JUSTICE, A PRIMOKDIAL TRAIT OF GOD 



lPrc0entcC> to 
THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY CLUB 

OP 

NEW YORK 

THROUGH 

Mes. COUETLAJfD PALMER 



CONTEXTUAL EXCEEPTS. 



For this does not consume what it biimeth, but repaireth what it preys 
tzpon, so that the mountains which always burn remain, and this may be 
a Testimony of that Eternal Fire, which continually nourishcth and pre- 
Berveth those that are punished by it. — TertuUian. 

Many more are left under the vengeance of God than are made objects 
of His saving grace. — Amjustine. 

The whole world does not beloug to the Creator. Grace delivers a few 
■who would otherwise perish, but leaves the world in the destruction to 
which it has been destined. — Calvin. 

The two worlds of happiness and misery will be in full view of each 
other. The saints in glory will see how the damned are tormented. A 
sense of the opposite misery greatly increases the relish of any joy or 
pleasure. Every time they look upon the damned it will give them a more 
lively relish of their own happiness ; it will be an occasion of rejoicing as 
it will be a glorious manifestation of the glory of God; therefore the 
damned and their misery, their sufferings and the wrath of Gori poured 
out upon them, vnW be an occasion of joy to them. They will be hated 
with a perfect hatred. God never loved them and never will love them. 

— Edwards. 

From age to age the elect have been very few. They make only a little 
flock, which almost escapes our notice. — Afassillo?}. 

Little children and young infants, though they live but a minute, are in 
as great danger as men that live a hundred years. It is not for your time 
that God will judge you, but for the odious nature of sin. — Christopher 
Loi'i: 

Little child if you go to Hell there will be a devil at your side to strike 
you. Neither father, nor mother, nor brother, nor sister, nor friend will 
ever come to cry with you. Tlie same law which is for others is also for 
children. See a terrible sight. The little child is in this red hot oven. 
Hear how it screams to come out. See how it turns and twists itself 



about in the fire. Yon can see on tlie face of this little child what you 
see on the faces of all in Hell — despair, desperate and horrible ! At this 
moment a child is going into Hell. To-morrow evening go and knock at 
the gates of Hell and ask what the child is doing ; the devils will go and 
look. Then they will come back and say : " The child is burning." Go 
forever, and forever you will always get the same answer, " it is burning. '* 
Children will be frightened there. Do you know what is meant uy 
being frightened out of one's senses? A boy wanted to frighten two 
other little boys. In the day time he took phosphorus and marked 
the form of a skeleton on the wall of the room where the little boys 
always slept. In the daj' time the mark of phosphorus was not seen, in 
the dark it shines like fire. The two little boys went to bed kTiowing 
nothing about it. Next morning they found one boy sitting on his bed 
Btaring at the wall, out of his senses. The other little boy was dead. 
That was fright. — Father Furnis^'' Tracts for Little Children for the 
year 18S1, jtuOlished 2:)en7iissu superlorum, represfi/ting the doctrine of 
the Roman Catholic Church and acknowledged as such by the authorita- 
tive allowal of its 2)nblicatio7i. 

Nay one could go farther, and could hold that contrast may be a 
necessary factor in the Divine economy, and that for aught we know the 
Eternity of Evil finds some explanation here.* — Professor Patton in 
Princeton Uevieiv for 1878. 

Human punishment umite the Divine is variable ai. J inexact, because 
it is to a considerable extent reformatory and protective. The Divine 
Tribunal in the last great day is invariably and exactly just, because it is 
neither reformatory nor protective. And this work is to satisfy justice. 
The human penalty that approaches nearest to the Divine is capital 
punishment. The reformatory element is wanting. — Dr, Shedd^ North 
America^i linnev} for 1885, pp. 160-0. 

The goodness, yea the exceeding mercy of God in creating human beings 
who he fore-knew from all eternity to be eternally damned. — Lynuin 
Ashland. Sermons for 1885. 

I started suddenly, there was a voice beside me, a young woman with a 
babe on her arm. — Letters from Hell, 18S5. 

* In other words if we define the fatalistic chiaroscuro of Necessary Contrast with 
which this ^vriter sums up this whole theological diabolism it stands squarely thus : 
** What were Heaven in all its splendor without Hell to set it o£E." — The Authob. 



He who rids tlie world forever of a sui:)erstitioii 

])tise, 
Is the greatest lieiief actor, dead or living, of 

his race. 

8. Miller Hage.max. 



In its sleep, bent o'er a City, weejis a figure 

carved to Pity, 
Through whose eyes and lips and fingei-s runs 

an old heart-broken rhyme : 
And the throngs that lean and listen as those 

trickling tear-drops glisten, 
Little think themselves are jnetui'ed and the 
thoughtless Lapse of Time, 

Sounding do-wn its way snl)lime, 
With its many-f(:)untaine<l music and its mul- 
titudinous chime. 
Oozing, trickling, bnl)bling, gleaming, 
Laugliing, wee])ing, sol)bing, streaming. 
Wailing, murmuring, sighing, dreaming. 
Flowing, flowing on. 



So stand Ave, that dreaming sleej^er, as the 

shades of life grow deeper, 
And tlie Lapse of Time is flowing through the 

fountain of our years : 
Seconds, minutes, hours, hasting, through our 

heart-throljs, wasting, wasting. 
Trickling througli our luuids forever into grasp- 
less hopes and fears. 

Till at last Time disappears 
Down tlie dindydighted valley, down the val- 
ley of our tears. 
Tinkling, plashing, rippling, creeping. 
Bounding, sparkling, dancing, leaping. 
Foaming, l)illowing, tumbling, sweejiing, 
Gliding, gliding on. 



12 



Time — thy shadowy stream emerges from its 
thousaud-folded surges, 

Wliere, as sunliglit drcnins tn iiKundight, mem- 
(.)i"y and mystery meet ; 

Oil wliose orieiiey M-elling, sh)\vly widening 
cycles swelling, 

Round the wild fantastic echos, so fantasti- 
cally sweet. 

That tlie river doth re])eat. 

To the music and the motion of its tiuctuatinir 
feet, 

Welling, dripjiing, jiattering, plasliing, 
Spouting, roaring, liooming, dasliinrr^ 
Volleying, avalanching, crashing, 
Moving, moving on. 



TJirougli the pillared grotto's brimming, twink- 
ling little 1 >oats go skimming, 
Down the deep perspective dimming, slowly 

down its marble hall ; 
And faint i)eals of song and laughter, "Vale," 

" Vale," sound long after, 
Do^vn that dini JEolian river they have van- 
ished at our call. 

As the echoes float and fall. 
Echoes of departing souls, as Night and Silence 
wraps them all. 

Echo's, echo's, echo's flying. 
Up and down the river dying. 
Still repeating, still replying, 
Flying, dying on. 



14 



Deep througli tlai-kentMl oaverii gliding, deeper 

still witLiu it. hiding, 
Save tlie small white fishes sliding eyelessly all 

to and fro ; 
Loud and louder sounds the splashing of the 

Avaters, dashing, dashing, 
As some blundering roek goes erashing down- 
^w'lrd "with the torrent's flow, 

With I'everlierating Idow, 
Down, ilown, down, the echoing chasm, down a 
hundred feet Ijelow. 

Echo's, echo's, echo's meeting, 
Uj) and down tlie river fleeting, 
Still replying, still I'epeatiug, 
Souudiug, sounding on. 

15 



Ou it flows by dt-ll ami dingle, whei'e tlie 

drowsy flock-bells jingle, 
Tink a tank a tingle, lingle, as the sheep wind 

sloAvly home : 
On Ijy day M'ith flowers a-winkle, on Ijy night 

^vitll stars a-twinkle. 
Drowsing, dreaming, I'ielily creaming all its 
banks with flowery foam, 

As its waters onwai'd roam, 
On -with baa-aa and noo-oo — and tinkle, as the 
herds clang slowly home, 
Throngli the corn and through the clover, 
Through the rock-l)eds, under, over. 
So Time goes, a restless rover, 
Roamins:, roaming^ on. 



10 



Tlirougli the palms the goldeu pheasaut glitters 

like a yellow crescent, 
T(.) the crocodile's low chuckle all along its 

leafy cliiuks : 
As from out the stiffling rushes some tall il)is 

loudly l)rushes, 
Wliips tlie l)lue air with his Avhite wings, flies 

off — till at last it sinks, 

Down upon some sun-red sphinx. 
Tired of standing — doubled up — on one leg by 

the reedy brinks. 

And a cangia down the river, 

On whose oars the moonbeams shiver, 

Swift as arrow fi'om a quiver 
Shoots and flashes on. 



(!)ii tliat undulating river, luirrying phantoms 

sway and shiver, 
Never lifted veils of Isis, Ijut Time lulls them 

witli its lay : 
Knocks at hut and throne and castle, calls alike 

to king and vassal, 
Calls, as age and youth and childhood with its 
willowy waters plaj^, 

Calls, and as they turn to stay. 
Whispers to them, " Come " and washes, 
w^ashes all their feet away. 
Idling, basking, loitering, purling, 
Eddying, cpiirking, darting, whirling, 
Sporting, chasing, rushing, swirling, 
Drowsint;, drowsincr on. 



18 



Down it drops tlirougli layers of j^eoples, do^vn 

tliroiigli crypts and courts and stee])]es, 
Bares a brow, a loin, a sceptre, and a throne 

with monarch set : 
Captaiu-jewelled-crowned Osiris, circled with 

the magic iris. 
All, as once they looked on Egypt, still on 
Egypt looking yet. 

Face to face in silhouette, 
Kanked alon"- that runic river, mirrorinu- all 
Time ever met. 
Cangias, je^vels, crystals, vases. 
Orgies, odors, voices, faces, 
Teai'-drops, passions, torn emliraces, 
Driftintic, driftinof on. 



Down it rolls and down it raijes, thunderinc; 
from oiit the ages, 

Down a dee^), volcanic whirlpool, pouring with 
its frenzied throng ; 

Through an oltl Pompeian city, crying, " Jesu, 
Nunc Dimmitte." 

O'er whose shipwrecked crew Time's river omi- 
nously Hows along. 

Listen, as it flows along, 

To the revelry, to the devilry of that cacopho- 
nian song. 

For it seems all sounds intoning. 
Wheezing, muttering, cursing, groaning. 
Hooting, howling, bellowing, moaning. 
Moaning, moaning on. 

30 



Brightly stands that Liimaii toiTent, sliudJer- 

ing back as if aljhorreiit, 
Sunset of lost souls all going doAvu in darkness 

and in doubt : 
Tantalus, witli wild endeavor, drinks the watery 

di'ouglit forever, 
Round -whose Thirst-cup whorls the whirlpool, 
round its heterogeneous rout. 
Round and round its hollow spout. 
Round and ]-ound and round forever, but it 
cann(_)t wash it out. 
In its coil a serjient couches, 
0])en-mouthed it cranes, it crouches, 
Sucks — and witJi distended pouches, 
Sucks — and swallows on. 



Through its Jim mysterious portal on whose 

crest a mythic mortal * 
Strains a silver cloud forever to his cheated 

bosom fond ; 
Through its shadowy recesses that its labyriutli 

confesses, 
Deep from out that inky darkness a dia^^hanous 
creature dawned, 

That forever did respond, 
" Come with me and I will light you through 
this labyrinth beyond." 
She, with singing and with smiling. 
She, with languoring face, beguiling, 
All her pits with victims piling, 
Many a soul lures on. 



* Ixion embracing Juno. 

22 



I had seen in mai'ljles scented, in old tapestries, 

tormented 
Contours of this curious creature at whose feet 

the snake's mouth yawned ; 
Wrought of woven wind the vapory tissue of 

whose trailing dra])ery, 
Whispered on the checi|uered marl)le with its 
Lanceolated frond. 

As her heavy eyes des])ond. 
Standing there a yellow leopardess in the tam- 
arisk shade Ijejoiid, 
Far from love and virtue straying, 
Far from home and -wrung hands prayini', 
Dice and drink and music jilaying, 
She, her Aveb weaves on. 



?3 



E'en the wliile I did heliold her, fi-orn tlie clasp 
ii])on lier shoulder, 

Slowly slid tlie purple peplum till about her 
feet it fell : 

And beneath the round pilaster, like a lamp in 
alabaster, 

So her soul shone through her body, as a sea- 
nymph through its shell, 

So she sang her syren-spell, 

Lurina; foolish mortals downward till their 
feet take hold on hell. 
" Come," she sighed with cinel malice, 
"Come," she sighed with cu]) and chalice, 
" Come, with me into my Palace," 
" Come with me, come on. 



24 



■• Oins ! wliat means thy growling tluuiJer, why 
thy pent, thy wikl-eyed wonder? 

See ! the gates of Hell are opening and a soul 
goes in a-train ; 

Howls of rai^e and veils of lauji-hter, rinfin" 

^' ^' 7 

l)ack from roof and rafter, 
Swell the wild tremendous ui)roar of each con"-- 

resouudino- chain. 

Rend the Book of souls in twain. 
And a name — your name upon it — and the gates 

crash too again. 

Be it god or demon nu;ttering, 

Be it fiend or faiiy fluttering, 

Round it rustling shajies ai'e cluttei'ing, 
As that soul glides on. 

* 0ms, tbo Dog of Hell. 



Swift from out tlie crimson flurry clutching 

grifEons liiss and hurry, 
Beaked and talon-hooked together, fiends of 

every sort and size ; 
For a share of her damnation, piece-mealing 

with delectation. 
One l:)y one each shape that enters in her train 
with fiery eyes; 

Ghoul-watched gate of Paradise, 
Verminous with griffons craning at each shadow 
as it flies : 
Satyr, gorgon, dragon, goggling. 
Scorpion, vampire, bogie, boggling, 
Harpy, ]iixy, ogre, oggliug. 
Gloating, gloating on. 



* O'er its arch that deadly sentence, once witldn 

it.— no repentance, 
Every face a branding horror, every breath a 

smoking prayer, 
Burning floors and vaults and dresses, burning 

chains and wings and tresses, 
Burning hands flung up for torches that but 

light them to des|)air, 

Swirlinu: down that headlong stair. 
Swirling, bottomlessly swirling, down, down, 

down that dizzy stair. 

In each drop I seem discerning 

Countenances dazzled, turning. 

Sizzling, crackling, blistering, burning, 
Burning, burning on. 

*A11 ye who eutei- here leave hope behind, 
a? 



Swart amid them sits the devil on a throne in 

ghastly revel, 
Rattling in his monstrous shackles all the prison- 
house of Hell : 
One hand pointing light supernal, and the other 

gloom infernal. 
As he cries, " For God a handful, but for me 
these myriads tell," 

" All these peopled planets tell," 
" All these starry camp-fires burning in the bi- 
vouac of Hell," 
Sun and sky and space enshrouding. 
Threatening, gathering, blackening, clouding. 
Rumbling, thundering, piling, ci'owding, 
Crowding, cro^vding on. 



its 



"All are called Imt few are eliosen," warm 

Heaven in a tear-drop frozt-ii, 
Thinly sown the i)ath to glor}-, l)ut devonred 

the road to night : 
Here and there a hermit's taper shines, elect, 

through mantling vapor, 
'Mid the windows that are darkened in the 
Palace of the Light, 

Darkened Palace of the Light. 
Till a grand deserted ruin Heaven stands out 
against our sight. 
Nearly all God's throne forsaken, 
Nearly all God's crown outsliaken, 
x\nd its captain-jewels taken, 
Satan has it on. 



There tlie vast assembled millions, tiered on 

billions, tiered on trillions, 
Lost long years before the coming of that Christ 

they ne'er should see : 
There that fog-like army rising from the sea, 

a satirizing 
Swarm, and all -without a Saviour, damned and 
damned eternally. 

Think of it — eternally, 
All past Time a point forever to the Timeless- 
ness to l)e. 

And the distant " Ever" " Ever," 
Echoing back the " Never" "Never," 
Runs through Acheron forever, 
On and on and on. 



There the troops of little Aviuuiiig siuners ere 
they Ivuew of sinuiiig, 

Lost for Ijiit a dro]) of water, sob along those 
walls a-side ; 

Too deformed for recognition, masked the l)et- 
ter for derision. 

Till the s})irit of St. Vitus ^\■ould Ije fully sat- 
isfied ; 

Father, mother, sweetheart, Ijride, 

Through the glare of dazzliui:- darkness diabol- 
ically eyed 

Countenances, knotted, staring, 
Leering, mocking, taunting, glaring. 
Scowling, glowering, wild, despairing, 
Dead but liviuo- on. 



There the go\vk.s, the dwarfs, the dragons, idiots 
straining fiery flagons, 

Shrivelled wails, sleep-walking shrouds, gnarled, 
bleared enormities a-lile : 

There, luicouched, the sick, the weary, deaf 
and duml) and lilind and dreary. 

Moralist and Ma^'delena fluuo; to one incestuous 
pile, 

Lifting xi-p high Mass the while, 

Typhon wiithing under ^tua with its mon- 
strous el)Ouy smile. 
Tangled stack of serpents, coiling. 
Hissing, fanging, frothing, boiling, 
Tightning, festering, weltering, toiling. 
Writhing, wi'ithing on. 

33 



Burnt ill Effigy God's creatures, with his staiiij) 

iip(jii their features, 
Gorgon smiling l)aek Apolhi, carved to monu- 
mental man ; 
All that image fast departing, on those stony 

eyeballs starting, 
Hands o'er hands of blackened pillars liohlliig 
up Heav^en's gorgeous s})an, 

Sport-making Sampsonion ! 
Bow thyself — thy unshorn fury wamld pull 
down the eternal plan. 
To^vering l\]^ a human Babel, 
Reaching Heaven, out-fabling fable, 
And yet 1 )ut a stony table 
Law is writino- on. 



Down upon tliat city burning, looks tlie face of 

God discernint; 
Everything in Heaven turning red with its 

retlection set : 
Blood-shot moon iipon Gil)raltar, as upon its 

smoking altar, 
Flames the smile of satisfaction with its relish- 
ing regi'et 

O'er Heaven's i-ed-robed parapet, 
On death-kissed remembered faces, and yet able 
to forget. 
Two worlds turned toward one another, 
Two souls in them, child and mother, 
One in Heaven — in Hell the other, 
Smiling, sobbing on. 



34 



Look down tlirougli the gates below thee, 

mother, on those eyes that know thee, 
Can'st thou say from Heaven's "Good Moruiug" 

to that chdd HelFs " Good Night ? " No, 
Can'st thou from tlnit orphan ever turn and 

say " Our Father ? " Never. 
By a mother's love I cannot, ^vill not, dare not 

make it so. 

Slie had left Heaven long ago, 
Crying out — "If this Ije Heaven then t<) all 



Hell will I tro 






Be she saint or be she sinner. 
While that ehild cries out within lier 
"Mother," 'twere n<_>t God to Aviu lier 
While tliat child cries on. 



Not a star above but nightly for the darkness 

shines more brightly, 
What Avere Heaven in all its splendor without 

Hell to set it off 'i 
What were light Avithout its shadoAV on the 

cloudless Eldorado ? 
What Avei-e joy without its sorrow, what -were 
song Avithout its scoff ? 

Each to set the other off. 
And a gluttony for glory and a skeleton at its 
trough, 

Till in tui'u no less amazing, 
Lurid Hell on Heaven lies blazing. 
See ! the angels with their glazing, 
Bloodshot eyes look on. 

3t) 



What are all those people burning iu that 

whirlpool redly turning ? 
Burninc-- Joss-sticks to Jehovah seated on the 

throne of Thor : 
Ilr ^^-ho, like that king of glory in an old bar- 
baric story, 
AVhen the enemy hud landed Ijurned their ships 
upon the shore, 
That they should depart no more, 
Wrapt asV)estosdike in fire yet imconsumed, 
that siege ne'er o'er. 

Writhing in a wild endeav(->r 
To appease God's wratli, ah never. 
Great Implacable! forever, 
Love sits hating on. 



" I will laugli at their disaster. I will nicK-k 

as fear comes faster. 
" I Avill sit as a refiuer briiio-ino- out what sin 

begat : 
" I will sear the shining lenses of their filmy- 
folded senses, 
" Lest, mayhap, they be converted, till the 
fire drops out thereat. 

From the winedight of the vat, 
" Mercy, when I will have mercy," tliink'st 
thou ever God said that ? 
Laughing — while fresh vengeance waking. 
Laughing — while a world forsaking. 
Laughing — while his heart is breakinrr, 
Laughing, laughing on. 



Are they all alike foi'sakeii, is the last, the last 

kiss taken l 
Suifei'ing foi- tlie sake of suffering, a revenge 

that mortals spurn : 
Thus, as virtue God condoning what his creat- 
ures are disowning, 
That as Time's slow-fingered Sybil Ijook ])y 
l)Ook its volumes liurn 

In the ashes of their urn. 
There shall still 1:»e always sometliing left of 
sin for sin to learn. 
Still the Sybil sits there turning, 
All that lore of guilty learning. 
And though leaf by leaf is burning, 
Still a leaf turns on. 



39 



But suppose them thus deserted, and the Face 

of God averted, 
What free choice in such a creature without 

God — yet God begot ? 
Without eyes, damned for not seeing ; without 

feet, damned for not fleeing ; 
Without ears, damned for not hearing ; without 
wills, for choosing not. 

Judgment over — Justice — What ? 
Down in such a spiderous dungeon immortality 
would rot. 
All in Thee, Thou great All-seeing, 
All in Thee, thy shadows fleeing. 
Live and move and have their being. 
Dead in Thee — live on. 

40 



Shut a child up in a closet, till the stiiiing 

Jarkuess awes it ; 
Hear its sob, " O IMamina, mamma," dwiudle to 

a moan, a sigh ; 
Go some morning and undo it ; look, O mon- 
ster, look into it, 
See ! a little heap of ashes, all that's left of 
that Ijright eye. 
And the whole Avorld cries out, Fie ! 
Yet you leave that very closet on God's hands 
eternally. 

You do more — you turn its story 
To a shamble grim and gory, 
In which God, for his own glory, 
Stands and slaughters on. 



Sin — you punisli — yet preserve it — steal Heav- 
en's fire witli which to serve it, 

Fan it till a wild contagion leaps through cor- 
ridor and hall : 

Till the cyclone hath arisen, till the lightning 
strikes tlie prison, 

Slam the lid do\vn on the caldron, " Come 
out " to the chained wretch call. 
That is Hell — if that a])pall, 

To preserve sin and forever were the greatest 
sin of all. 

Guilt that makes high God its miser. 
Hoarding up with vault and visor. 
Dark Malignity grown wiser, 
As its plot goes on. 



Thou who all cm- hands hast broken from the 

hands that wave no token, 
Does forgiveness turn to hatred in a single honr 

above ? 
Eye that warms not, weeps not-answer-m 

thy breast that luirning cancer, 
Says, "for this there now is nothing, nothing 
left that Love can do." 

" Nothing left for God to do." 
"But to sit and smile and feel it burning, burn- 
ing through and through," 
Spoken to, l)ut never speaking. 
Sought, alas, but never seeking, 
God have mercy-but that reeking, 
Eye looks on, looks on. 



Still o'er all that burning city, weeps tliat figure 
carved to Pity, 

With the -water trickling, trickling, through its 
eyes and hands and lips : 

Still that terrible clepsydra, through its human- 
headed hydra, 

On each brow in molten minutes maddeningly 
drips and drips, 

And a spectre sips and sips, 

And a rainbow playing in it over all that wild 
eclipse. 

Peeping through their dungeon-gi-ating. 
Peeping, calling, crouching, waiting, 
Beckoning, listening, watching, waiting, 
Vainly, vainly on. 



44 



And those spectres will be found there, when a 

cycle shall go round there, 
At those bolted doors of Doom ^vith charred 

heads listening at the grate 
For a knock— that falleth never, though they 

wait for it forever. 
Key and keeper gone to glory, an.l the i)rison 
locked— Too late ! 

O Thou Irony of Fate ! 
With thy hand-a shaking palsy-fumlding 
for a latchless gate. 
Hopeless— yet forever hoping, 
Bandaged-swathed, yet blindly groping 
Toward those doors that shnt in opening, 
Shut and open on. 



Dost thou still refuse to reason ? tLen to sleep 

to-night were treason, 
Fie thee on this earth, O preacher, till thon all 

that hori'or tell : 
Stop the clock, for Time is over, stay the scythe 

a-cut the clover 
Hang the houses all in mourning, drape the 

plough, the wheel, the bell 

Toll the deep-toned funeral knell, 
For the village, for the city, for the whole 

world is in Hell. 

Why, since Hell you hold my brother, 

Why, with holy water smother? 

Paint it as you paint the other, 
All its colors on. 



46 



All its groans, its i^ants, its embers, all its love 

no love remembers, 
All its liuuian-heaving contours, all its fever- 
crimsoning face, 
All its tears, its scars, its blisters — and that 

smile on Heaven that glisters. 
All, for God's eternal glory, all to show abound- 
ing grace ; 

All for glory, all for grace. 
Better Christ had died on Clu'istmas than such 
glory, than such grace. 
God for judge and Heaven for jiiry. 
Did the world believe that, surely, 
It would l)e a slinging fury 
Ere an hour rolled on. 

47 



Lost — a, foundling — at Heaven's portal, 1)oru 

dead, but a dead Immortal : 
Lost — a child — without a mother ; lost — -it 

knows not where or how : 
Lost — a soul — without a warning, sun eclipsed 

at gates of morning : 
Lost — a ship — without a captain, but his 
shadow at the prow ; 

Lost — l>ut none so lost as Thou. 
Lost unto Thyself, yet on Thyself all intro- 
verted now. 

Like a longforgotten story, 
Like a song of lark or lory. 
Lost — in light of thy own glory, 
Adnate-faced, lost on. 



4S 



What bath this God-pointing slander done to 

make tlie great world grander? 
Hatli it glorified religion, frightened nations 

\vith its fume ? 
It hath filled the earth with scorners standing 

upon all its corners, 
It hath made Christ's death a failure, it hath 
wrapt the world \vith gloom. 

In the shadow of its doom, 
Till each \vord we speak sounds ghastly as a 
death-groan from a tomb. 
It hath taught the churcli to palter, 
It hath taught the heai't to falter, 
And to stand still at the altar, 
While the lips moved on. 



49 



I begod a God supernal working out a good 

eternal, 
But a God who let Time's oliain down link liy 

link into tlie grave : 
Saw the end from the beginning, made a world, 

and with it, sinning 
Creatures that he could not govern, creatures 
that he could not save, 

Offered pardon to a slave, 
To a soul he felt beforehand doomed and 
damned ere life he gave ; 
Diabolical ! the Devil, 
In his wildest rage and revel, 
Never touched so low a level. 
As such God stands on. 



60 



All tlie types of luimau passion that the brutal 

ages fashion, 
All the gods of mythic fury meet iu such a 

God above. 
Wouldst thou coin a splendid casting of that 

One God everlasting ? 
All his attributes are ^vritten in those three 
words, " God is Love." 

Grand, exhaustless Godlike Love ; 
There it stands — the one solution of the world's 
great problem — Love. 

Not in -wrath vindicatory, 
Not in nature's stariy story, 
This is God's eternal glory, 
Lo\'ing, lo%'ing on. 



Thou, of tLis great l)all the moulder, charged 

with it against thy shoulder, 
Thou, that sweepest the horizon. Thou so sphere- 
less, we so small : 
Thou hast made us — by that token, can the 

bond 'twixt us be broken ? 
Thou hast made us. Shall thy image from its 
shining pedestal 

Into darkened ruins fall? 
Thine Ave are. Thou hast no orphans. Thou 
the Father of us all ! 
Who hatli need of such a blessing. 
Who hath case so wildly pressing. 
As a wretch, thy love transgressing, 
Still transgressing on ? 



Nothing dies — tlie distant " Ever " is the eclio 

of tlie " Never," 
Silence is but unheard music soundins; some- 

where still iu space : 
Somewhere in the distance dying, bugles calling, 

colors flying, 
Troy is carrying off Helen, Cain strikes Aljel in 
the face. 

Veiled in melancholy lace, 
In some cloud-ljower Eloisa falls in Abelard's 
embrace. 

And the " Ever " and the " Ever," 
To the " Never " and the " Never," 
Through the river runs forever — 
And forever on. 



53 



Bring me up the blackest Ethiop stooping down 

to drink all Lethe up, 
In that fiend a bright Celestial gleams out of 

his eyes again : 
Still for him all sweet sounds tingle through 

his memory as they mingle, 
Still for him a bird is singing, and a flower 
tincts all the glen, 

Something in him now as then, 
'Tis tlie far-off " Alter E2:o " Time is bringing 
out in men. 

For, if holiness eternal, 
Lost St. Satan once supernal. 
Why should sin hold him infernal, 
As that sin goes on ? 

64 



iufallil^le Tradition, crossed -witli priestly 

superstition — 

1 and God — Imperial It — tlie thing done tells 

God what to do : 
God saw not \\liat Galileo saw, knew not great 

Kepler's " Deo," 
Nor the fall of Newton's apj)le, though by that 
same ajiple too, 

Adam fell and downwaird drew 
By its law of gravitation, sin you never did on 
you. 
All the suns and stars that dapple 
This vast Universe, shall grapple 
With the theft of that one apple, 
Fallins;, fallinsr on. 



He who rids the woi'kl's sad story of a super- 
stition hoary, 

Is the greatest Benefactor, dead or living, men 
confess : 

He who shows the Avorld its Vision, shall hold 
up to high Elysian, 

The eternity of evil — that great curse — the 
churches hless, 

To be notliing more nor less, 

Thau a grand apotheosis to stupendous nothing- 
ness. 

After smiling, after weeping. 
After sowing, after reaping, 
Nothing left Lut love -worth keeping, 
Ever, ever on. 



56 



When God's hand the World had moulded 

slowly through long time unfolded, 
Last to come and late to ripen, in his lowest 

form came man : 
Man shall sin, and, sorrow-laden, ere he finds 

that sorrow's Aiiiden, 
Stand for all his solemn shadow far beyond 
where he began ; 

But beyond this earthly span, 
Man shall be a higher being, built upon a higher 
plan. 

Patience is God's pastime, slowly 
He is lifting up the lowly. 
To the pure, the high, the holy, 
Upward, upward on. 



57 



Still o'er all that burning City, weeps that fig- 
ure, pale with pity, 
From whose eyes and lips and fingers Time in 

blood-drops trickles through : 
And the throu&s still lean and harken as the 

shadows round it darken : — 
Such a sin and such a Saviour as its deep ver- 
milion drew, 

At the Cross that City threw. 
Father ! Father ! O forgive them, for they 
know not what they do ! 

O ye priests, ye schools, go borrow 
Justice, from that dying sorro^v ! 
Yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, 
Jesus Christ ! live on ! 



es 



Jesus Christ ! divinely human — something man 

and something Avoman, 
Crown of universal empire claims no other king 

but Thee : 
From the deserts Ethio2)ic, from the ocean and 

the tropic, 
From the glittering suns and systems that go 
round Immensity, 

(For they all l)elong to Thee) 
" I, if I be lifted up will draw the whole world 
unto me." 
Hark ! I hear — a whispered thunder. 
Filling all the \\>n-]il \\'ith wonder, 
'Tis the tread of millions under 
Coming, coming on. 

59 



For, did Christ, tliougli God's hand beckoned, 

with anxiety unreckoned, 
See do^\•n through the gates infernal one whom 

ouce he loved so well : 
He would turn his back on glory, on its song 

and on its story. 
Tear the crown from off his forehead, and the 

robe that round him fell. 

Hurry down to darkest hell. 
Crying, " Judas." " The Lord's Supjier "—that 

is irresistible. 

That is Christ — sublime engraving. 

Holy with its human craving. 

Souls worth making are worth saving. 
While a soul throbs on. 



60 



I behold their lighted tapers, rising from the 

Avliirlpool's vapors, 
Through the orescent pales of l)eing up the 

steep of world's afar : 
I behold them — the Past hovers — the air throbs, 

the eye discovers 
Uj) vast flights of steps — a Thi'one-Cross — 
shining in a nightless star. 

Two Thieves at its Judgment bar. 
"To bless Heaven is good," the judge says, " to 
bless Hell is better far." 

Rags and shame and destitution, 
Vice and squalor and pollution, 
All that wails for absolution, 
Bless that — bless, bless on. 



ei 



Flow, thou stream of Time, flow coldly, and 

througli all that City boldly. 
With thy waters wash it, wash it, all away 

forevermoi'e : 
Earth grows still, its voices miiml)le, ships and 

cities rot and crumble. 
Skeletons of nations whiten to the wild beasts 
famished roar, 

Sinks its last sun low and lower. 
Life is dead — the world deserted — darkness 
falls — and Time is o'er. 

Dimly earth's last soul descrying, 
Faster and still faster flying, 
In the golden distance dying. 
Dying — dying — gone. 



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